4th of July 2012

Fourth of July 2012 got off to a rough start this year. You see, I had to go up to Temecula on Sunday night, July 1st to hitch up the trailer and get it ready to go get in the line lottery for a space at the park. Did I mention everyone else was at work, so I went by myself. We had gone and scoped out where we wanted to set up a few days prior so I knew where to go. Unfortunately, those spaces ended up reserved for vendors and RV rigs were not allowed to park there. I found out the hard way. I pulled up to the spaces and they had not moved the cones yet. (The whole street was coned off) So finally I asked when they were opening that section and that is when I learned it was closed. Ugh! So I went up ahead and started to park, only to realize that we would not be able to open our slide on the trailer, so I make a U-turn with the trailer and then another u-turn (both illegally) to get back in line to try to swoop up one of the last spots. So I swing in to this pocket of space, only to realize that there is no way I am going to be able to parallel park the trailer in that space.

I was about to give up and cancel our party when all of a sudden I decided to go beg the guys behind me to park my trailer for me. A sweet man named Poncho parked the trailer and in return I promised beer and soda. In fact, I cried happy tears when he agreed to help.

Then Tuesday evening Justin came up to meet me so we could go shopping and level the trailer and then load it up and spend the night at the park...well, my dad's truck broke down on his way home from work, so that cost us about 5 hours because we were working on his truck instead. We finally headed over to the trailer around 7pm, only to find that the propane (refrigerator) was not working. We got that resolved and then the water pump was not working. Turns out, it dried out and needed a reverse siphon. At this point it is 10:30pm...and we still had to go grocery shopping. We went shopping, dropped food back off at the trailer and headed to my parents' house where we marinated ribs, packed and headed to bed.

The next morning Justin and I got up super early to get everything ready and head down to the trailer. We stopped in at Starbucks and then continued on. First up was getting the smoker started. That took an hour to figure out what we were doing and get the coals hot enough. I moved the truck to a spot in the lot and also parked my mom's car (we took her car) in the lot to reserve spaces. We set the smoker up where the truck was parked on the street.

While Justin worked on the smoker, I put decorations out. I had red, white and blue towels in the bathroom and a flag towel in the kitchen.

Once the smoker was going, Justin came in and got on the internet to look up some trailer stuff.

Around noon, Kendall, Grandma, Bompie and Lauren arrived with another truck load of stuff and Taco Bell.

Our little patriotic cutie enjoying the flags.




My Dad loaded up a second table, more chairs and another tent in Kendall's truck that we had not originally planned on having, so we got to work setting that all up and decorating.

Once we were all done setting up, we headed out for a walk. Everyone commented on how cute Lauren was and like she was in a parade!



We ran in to Vinnie's family and they had a new funnel cake maker that my dad wanted to try.

Then we headed back to "camp" and pulled the ribs out of the smoker. They were so good. Our camp was decorated the best, by the way.





Lauren immediately headed to her favorite place to play in the trailer.


I love this picture of Lauren and Grandma playing inside, through the screen door.

Soon, it was time for Lauren to take a nap, so Justin took her inside for a nap. She fought it at first, but finally gave in.

She woke up around 5pm, right as everyone was arriving.When my Aunt Marilyn arrived, she saw Poncho at the camp next to us. It turns out that they have known Poncho for 30+ years and he is their neighbor.





We started dinner around 5:30pm. We had hot dogs, fruit, chips and guacamole, corn salad and bean salad.



After dinner, Lauren and Auntie danced to the music playing in the park.



We got the trailer cleaned up and "ready to go" once everyone was done eathing so we could just pull out once the traffic died down after fireworks. We also needed to move the slide in so it would not get hit by the traffic after the fireworks. The park was PACKED!

Fireworks started at 9pm and Lauren loved them. She watched them from Auntie's truck bed and Wowed and Whoaed and giggled the entire time! I spent most of my time videotaping.



After fireworks, we cleaned up a bit more and then hitched up the trailer and left. We got home around 10:45pm. While we were cleaning up, Lauren played in the trailer with Great Grammie and Great Grampie. We had a ton of fun, but are really hoping to be camping somewhere next year instead of being at the park. It was A LOT of work for just one day.